Connection is everything.

In feng shui, it’s Tao. It’s the stuff that roots you to life. Calm, powerful, certain, resilient, brilliant connection.

Fly through life- with all it’s greatness and toughness, too- and you may miss out on connection.

It starts slow at times: a bit spacey, a bit off your game… And then, rapidly the connection can fly out the window.

If you’re anything like I’ve been, you only know when you’ve really lost your touchstones of power when they’ve gone.

That was my way. Hustle, soar, produce… then burn out and take a recovery rather than a rest break.

While respecting the speed of life and its flow is all a part of being connected, there are times where lots of deep breaths, sleep and slowness can bring back all the power we all need.

Slow may not be sexy on the surface all the time, but it results in the most luminous results. 
I’m faced with huge magnificence all around me. Puppies, exciting projects, brilliant people, loads of love and creativity and oneness… Parties, velocity, action, dreaming hugely…

And at the same time, I have things coming up – more on this next week…when it’s over- that require a level of calm and positivity that can come only from deep connection that is forcing me to slow down.

I only realized in all the glow and greatness that I needed to move slower when life handed it to me in an intense stomach ache, incessant worry and fear I am not used to feeling…not even a little bit.

Truth: The people I most admire can stay as solid as a deeply rooted tree in the midst of lots of chaos and action. They all have one thing in common.  They aren’t afraid to slow down. They love themselves enough to trust that life will still work in their favor – as will love and art and everything else- if they take time for themselves to go slow and settle down.

Typically I’m OK with slow. But now isn’t a slow time. Yet, it’s about to be!

When life is insanely great, slow is the last thing we want to do, you know? I mean:What if the rush of amazing deflates in the slower pace?

And when you’re faced with all the challenging stuff of problems, slow is scary because it implies that you’re letting problems persist longer than if you, you know, pushed through. 

Not so.

If you’re peeling away from your grounded power as you move fast- and even relentlessly- the returns diminish. Hours of writing get scrapped or bring you a page of something you don’t like. Work like crazy is unfocused and confusing. Nothing really does well in a rush of too much.

We weren’t created to be robots. I remind myself of this when the need to calm down arises…

Do you feel a little too robotic, frantic, stressed, obsessed with silly things or just irrational…?

Here are 10 ways to know if you can benefit from more slow.

1. Your body doesn’t like you too much. Aches, pains, exhaustion, inflammation… it’s a no-brainer. This is the reddest of flags that I have to slow down. It used to be tempting to power through and go and go and go… That has landed me in very bad places.
2. You start talking fear. When you’re not really tethered to the planet firmly for good or challenging reasons, all rational sense flies out the window. I was asked this morning why I can’t just be positive about all the stuff coming up next week. I’m always positive. Many of you rely on my positivity to greet your inboxes. It’s my nature. I don’t have to try. But when I get unhinged and disorganized and feel unprepared… I’m talking just as much fear as anyone else. It was a disarming question. “Why can’t you just be positive?” Slow is the only antidote I know. It’s Kale shake and Buddhist chanting time. Naps and baths. I’m moving slow and purging all this chaos.
3. Anxiety creeps in. I’m glad I feel no anxiety right now, but I have… and it’s horrible. Nothing is quite as disarming as a panic attack out of the clear blue. I’ve always viewed anxiety as a blinking light telling me on rare and strange occasions that I’ve gone far from my true nature and connection to life.
4. It’s almost impossible to start new habits despite tons of resolve to do them. How many times did you pledge to start eating better and then, poof, it vanished as soon as you needed to eat and the only things around were candy and processed stuff to stuff? You may even hire help, join groups or elicit support… but being ungrounded and less and less present makes it really hard to focus with the kind of energy it takes to make a change… even a super-positive one. You aren’t a hopeless case. You probably just need to get grounded!
5. Fun isn’t fun. Need I say more?
6. Everyday things feel like a huge burden. You know: groceries, walking the dogs, mailing a piece of mail… When I’m burned out or just totally ungrounded, even the simplest thing like getting a tea becomes a monumental task.
7. Things have supernatural urgency.  At my most grounded, I know everything works out as it’s meant to work out. At my most unhinged, it feels like simple things are deeply urgent. This is a place I don’t like to live in… not one bit! It’s really sinful and horrible to watch myself toss my cellphone in a spoiled-child fit, to get crazy over little things. Really: I have an incredibly, intensely blessed life. When I see myself acting this way (and loathing it every moment of it) it means I’ve been avoiding the one thing I need the most:slow.
8. Does it feel like the world is against you? When a pile of challenge flies at me, its when I need to go slow. 99% of the time the world is on my side, except for the 1% of the time when it’s crushing me. I’ve been going to long too fast too much…

Slow.

If you’re scared to lose your job, your money, your edge, your relationships or anything else by stopping to reconnect to life and even, maybe, take off for a while… this idea might be helpful:

“Our minds influence the key activity of the brain, which then influences everything; perception, cognition, thoughts and feelings, personal relationships; they’re all a projection of you.” ~Deepak Chopra

If you aren’t in a good place, you create a mirror that brings down the world around you.

I only want to life up the world around me, a much as possible.

My suggestion: scary as it may seem, slow down.

The right things will work out. Right people will be there. Right support will find you. Right timing will happen.

From there- once you’re grounded, connected, calm- you’re able to stay shining and bring lightness to your life, art, love and everything you’re meant to grow with and transform.

xoxo Dana

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